Hey, JayMass. Yikes - I'm sorry to see how your cat damaged Chloe. If your cat likes hanging out on your bed and Chloe usually wasn't there, puss may have seen it as an invasion of his/her territory when Chloe was placed there. I have a cat, too - he was 7 years old when my doll, Erik, arrived in 2021. Mine has always come to sleep with me every night. So when Erik arrived, I wanted puss to get used to him being there gradually. At first, I kept Erik in the spare room for one night, then on my bed the next night. I alternated like that for a couple of weeks and puss soon got used to him. My 2 major concerns when Erik arrived were: 1) That my cat might piss on him to mark territory and 2) Might use him as a scratching post. Thankfully, neither of those things happened. Now my cat spends most of the day sleeping on my bed between Erik's legs. (With leggings on to protect him from loose fur.) I've also heard about cats curling up on doll's laps to sleep. So it's possible for cats to live with dolls peacefully. I think the main thing is introducing them to the doll gradually. Because this was my cat's home before it was my doll's home.JayMass_68 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 15, 2023 10:58 pm My chloe, I used to put her in the box she was shipped in, but one day my sister came to visit so I had to put her in the closet. Afterwards I put her on the bed but I found that my cat chewed the silicone. . . One of her arms has been damaged and I'm trying to figure out how to patch her up. So as a reminder to all cat owners, you may want to avoid letting dolls and cats stay together.
Now for my answer to the question in this thread: Erik lives on my bed 24/7 - for a couple of reasons. 1) He has 2 loose hip joints and can't stand. He can't support his own weight and even at 36.8kg/81.1 lbs, he's quite heavy. I have less strength as a woman, so it's hard for me to lift him. And 2) Before he arrived, my husband had one condition: that Erik wasn't allowed to be in the lounge room with me. And I understand why: he's heavy and if someone arrived unannounced, I'd struggle with moving him to hide him. But that's a small price to pay: a lot of other guys in my husband's position probably wouldn't have accepted a doll at all. So I consider myself lucky in that regard.